


Lend Me Your Airtime

by cheshireArcher



Series: Shakespeare Broadcasting AU [2]
Category: Julius Caesar - Shakespeare
Genre: Broadcasting, Gen, Modern AU, Radio, broadcast au, broadcast hijacking/intrusion, disco sucks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2017-03-25
Packaged: 2018-10-10 05:15:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10429935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheshireArcher/pseuds/cheshireArcher
Summary: A nonsensical hijacking, useless staff, and disco cause more trouble for Portia Cato- who doesn't even work at this station.Part 1.5 of the Shakespeare Broadcast AU.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Previous chapter - http://archiveofourown.org/works/7365625/chapters/17843512
> 
> This takes place after chapter 11 and before chapter 13 of This Earth, This Realm, This Station. If you haven't read it, I highly suggest you do because this connects to the storyline. (Chapter 12 was the Christmas special)
> 
> ...I've only been promising this for over half a year.
> 
> Whoops.
> 
> Anyway, this part was incredibly difficult to write from the technical/legal standpoints. Add that to school and some health problems, and I've been very inconsistent in writing. Sorry. We now return you to our regularly scheduled programming.
> 
> There are a couple of pedantic things I should note:  
> First, Titinius (whoever he is) is Lithuanian in this just to justify his weird name (the joke that no one knows who he is comes from the "who the fuck is Titinius" meme.) Second, Kimble is Cimber- in the musical Rome at Dawn, his name sounds like "Kimble." Roman names are hard to fit into modern times okay.

**FCC Report**  
  
**Complaint :** Broadcast intrusion

 **Claimant :** 105.3 WROM FM, Julius Kaiser, general manager. Filed by Portia Cato, Carthage Law.

 **Transmitter location :** Lancaster, New York State

 **Inspector :** William Gascone

 **Description :**  
WROM's signal was interrupted on Saturday, July 16 at 10:43 PM, EDT by person or persons unknown. The intrusion consisted of 40 seconds of Van McCoy's "The Hustle," then a generated tone of "the Lincolnshire Poacher." After 58 seconds of airtime the intrusion ended and WROM's engineer, Greg Caskowsky, regained control of the signal. There have been no further complaints from WROM.

 

\---

 

"I blame Mr. Kaiser," Cass said.  


"You blame Mr. Kaiser for everything," Marcus replied. The two DJs, as well as their attorney had met for lunch to discuss what to do next after the hijacking.  


"It wasn't anyone's fault," Portia said, scrolling through a document on her phone. "And anyway, you regained control of the signal, could have been worse."  


"What do we do now?" Marcus asked.  


"I talked to the guy from the FCC," Portia replied. "He said he was in the area because there have been some other illegal broadcasts. We can't do much more than that. We're lucky enough that we _had_ someone to talk to. We're dealing with the federal government here."  
  
  
Marcus chewed on his burrito thoughtfully. "I think there were two intrusions," he said.  


"Two?" Cass asked. "What makes you think that?"  


"Well, why interrupt your own broadcast with something completely random like 'The Lincolnshire Poacher?' You're already broadcasting something."  


"Good point," Portia said. "What even was that tone?"  


"It's just an old English folk song," Cass said after looking it up on his phone. "A tone of it, like in our hijacking, used to be used on a number station from Cyprus, from the seventies to 2008."  


"That's why I think that there are two things going on, one of them interrupted the other," Marcus said.  


"Hijacking the hijackers?" Portia asked.  


"Exactly," Marcus replied. "The second could be a jamming, actually. I'd have to ask Luke about it, but it's possible."  


"All I can say is this better not be a repeat of the CONELRAD incident," Portia sighed.  


"It won't be. Not when I get my hands on the cretins who did this," Cass said.  


"You're still mad about the disco," Marcus replied.  


"Of course I'm mad!" Cass snapped. "That's the worst thing they could have done. Pass me some hot sauce, will you?"  


Portia passed him the sauce, of which she'd already poured a bowl for herself.  


"I think they could have done something worse," Brutus said.  


"Like what?" Cass demanded, taking a bite of chips and salsa. He gagged, mouth burning. "How can you eat this?" He gasped, looking at Portia in shock. "It's like fire!" Portia ignored him, which was just as well since the argument continued.

"Don't take it so personally, Cass," Marcus said.

"I'll take it as personally as I want to," Cass snapped.

The two DJs argued for another minute and Portia let them, since there was nothing productive to do anyway. "I should have listened to Dad," Portia muttered, putting her head in her hands. "Could have taken over the family farm, could have been New York's cabbage magnate."  


"I have to get back to the office," she said, finally, checking the time on her phone. "I'll call you if I hear anything more from the FCC."  


"You're leaving so soon?" Marcus said.  


"Yeah, gotta get back to Buffalo, you know I don't work in the suburbs." She sighed. "I do this because you're my husband and I love you."  


Brutus looked away. "Thanks," he said.  


\---  


"It's not hard," Luke said. "All they had to do was broadcast on our frequency with a stronger signal."  


"Uh-huh," Portia said, writing notes on a legal pad. "So how'd you get the station back?" The two of them were at the station, sitting in the control booth.  


"They cut out," Luke replied. "In all it was just like a minute. When they went off the air we went back to broadcasting as normal." Luke Titinius was one of WROM's engineers. He'd worked for the station for five years, after moving back from a few years in Vilnius with his parents. He'd been born in New York but was over in Lithuania so much that some of the newer employees, like Kimble in advertising, didn't know who he was.  


"So is it possible that someone hijacked the hijacker?" Portia asked.  


"What do you mean?"  


"Marc pointed out that there were two parts of the intrusion, and they don't seem to have anything to do with each other."  


"So the first part, the song, was interrupted by the tone," Luke said. "It's possible, I suppose, but the second, if it's a jamming, would probably have been done at the transmission site for the hijacking."  


"So perhaps someone was in on both," Portia replied. "But why interrupt your own hijacking?"  


"Why do you think I know?"  


Portia put her head in her hands. The cabbage farm was sounding better every minute.  


\---  


The station was finally back in order three days later. All the reports had been filed, the jamming had gone largely unnoticed by the listening public (which may or may not have been a good thing), and while the hijackers were still unknown, they at least had something to go on with the two-part intrusion theory. There was, however, one last thing to do- something for revenge. Which Portia was about to serve on the day she came to check up on the station.  


"Hey Cass," Portia said, poking her head in the office where Cass was running over next week's schedule.

"Yeah?"

"I need some help. I have some boxes in the trunk of my car, can you help me carry them?"

"Sure."

A few minutes later, Cass was weighed down with a very heavy cardboard box. "What's in this?" He asked.

"Records," Portia replied simply.

"Okay, where do these go?"

"Out back of the station."

Confused, Cass followed her to the empty lot behind the station.

"Here's fine," Portia said, leaning on her cane. "Take a look."

Cass set the box down on the ground and opened it up. "The heck, Portia?" Every record was disco.

"Seventy-five cents a record at the thrift store," Portia explained. "And," she continued, a dangerous spark in her eye, "I have a box of matches."

  
"You mean-"  
  
  
"Disco sucks," Portia said. "Pick one, we'll start with that."  
  
  
Cass chose one from Pickwick, took the record from the sleeve, and Portia tossed him the matchbook. He used the ugly 1970s sleeve as kindling, then tossed the record into the fire. This was the best day of his life. He and Portia took turns throwing LPs into the fire. They melted in a very satisfactory way, and soon enough there was just a black blob on the ground that once was disco.  
  
  
The hijackers may have still been free but WROM had exacted its revenge.


End file.
